WikiLicensing
Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/wiki-licensing
Created: 11/11/2005 by MatthewEast
Contributors: MatthewEast, HenrikOmma
Packages affected: None.
Summary
The progress of the better-wiki-docs spec provides a good occasion to reevaluate the licensing of "documentation" that appears on the Ubuntu wiki. There is currently no licensing policy expressed on the wiki and this has caused confusion. This spec attempts to develop a licensing policy which ensures that material contributed to wiki pages can be used freely in Ubuntu Official Documentation, and elsewhere, without any copyright restrictions.
Rationale
The wiki does not currently contain any express definition of licensing policy. This means:
There is confusion about whether material can or cannot be copied (for example into official Ubuntu documentation released in the distribution). ArguablyFootNote(It is probably true that people who post on the wiki can be taken to have impliedly waived their intellectual property rights of the material or alternatively have granted a licence to use the material freely by their conduct of posting to a "wiki", but we don't want to have to get into these sort of arguments!), it can be, but "arguably" is not good enough, we need clarity, for the Documentation Team, for the contributors and for the users.
There is therefore a need to avoid [http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2005-November/004222.html this sort of confusion] and establish a licensing policy which enables material posted on the wiki to be freely modified and redistributed.
We also need to consider whether to permit users to derogate from the licences: if a user wants to write a page on the wiki but retain copyright over it, should he be allowed to do so.
Use cases
Chiara works on the [http://doc.ubuntu.com Ubuntu Documentation Team]. She is writing a section of the [DesktopGuide:Ubuntu Desktop Starter Guide] about multimedia support. She would like to use the material from the wiki page MultimediaApplications, but is unsure of whether she will be breaching copyright by doing so.
- Anthony wants to work on the Ubuntu Wiki by contributing a guide, but is only prepared to do so on the basis that he retains copyright in the work and he wishes to find out whether this is possible on the Ubuntu wiki.
Design
Implementation
- Release a wiki page with the details of the licensing plan detailed in the Design section above.
Alternatively add the details to [http://www.ubuntu.com/legal the website legal page] and link to it from prominent areas of the wiki.
- link to the policy from the wiki footer?
Outstanding issues
Design, see above.